Armenia slipping out of Russia's hands, says political analyst

Political analyst Armen Vardanyan has spoken to the Armenian media about the strained relations between Armenia and Russia and the impact of Pashinyan's policies, Caliber.Az reports.

"Perhaps Moscow realises that Armenia is slipping out of its hands, but, I think Russia has already lost Armenia, it's just that the Russian strategic elite doesn't realise it. Armenia will no longer have the kind of relationship with Russia that it used to have, it will only become more pronounced over time," the expert noted.

"Of course, Russia will not accept this new reality easily. It always suffers when countries in its sphere of influence turn away from it. This has been the case with other countries, Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova, etc., but I think the Armenian authorities will not take such drastic steps, they will go step by step and over time the gap will deepen and this will be felt even more by both countries in future relations.

Armenia is trying to diversify its foreign policy, arms purchases, economic policy, etc. We see that Armenia traditionally bought more than 90% of its arms from Russia, now it is less than 10%. Armenia has already started to buy weapons from other countries. In terms of energy, I think the government has already made a political decision that the Metsamor NPP will eventually be replaced by an American modular NPP. Politically, we see a demarche towards the CSTO, Armenia's rapprochement with the West, the only area where there is no tangible progress in terms of diversification is economic cooperation.

Here, too, the Armenian government has a lot to do; in particular, it needs to do everything it can to redirect our exports to Arab countries and European markets, so that Russia does not use the Lars as a political lever against us. I think that in time there will be noticeable steps in this direction.

As far as the withdrawal of the Russian border guards from Zvartnots is concerned, I understand that an ultimatum has already been given to the leadership of the Russian border service here that the Russian border guards must leave Zvartnots as soon as possible. Perhaps this was not done at a higher level, through diplomatic channels, but by informing the local leadership of the service. I think that the government is determined in this matter as well, and soon the Russian border guards will be withdrawn from Zvartnots.

I cannot say why Russia has not responded to the statements of the Secretary of the Security Council, Armen Grigoryan, that Russia has officially told them that they will not complete the arms deliveries so as not to harden the position of the Armenian side. But if they do, of course, they will deny it. It has long been obvious to many of us that Russia is deliberately delaying arms deliveries, and this has happened not only during the rule of this government but they pursued a similar policy even during the time of Serzh Sargsyan. In 2016 we bought weapons that were supposed to be delivered before the April war, but they were delivered only in the autumn of 2016. Russia has been doing this for a long time, and yes, they deliberately delayed arms deliveries so that Armenia would be vulnerable," the political analyst said.